Popularity Contest as Marketing Strategy
Today, I got an email (not the first) from Moozikoo.com. There are soliciting artists for a fan contest. The reward is inclusion on a college radio promo CD***. When Melusine Records was doing pre-release review distribution, another site, musicemissions.com told me to try and win their fan contest. They only review the winners
I’ve thought about this problem for a while: “Should I participate? Yes? No?”
My conclusion is that I do not fit neatly enough within a genre. I get lumped into whatever genre seems closely related to what I’m doing.
the thing is, these corner genre lumped together only hold about 1% of the listening public. (all the genres that I fit into are part of the “other” not included in rock, pop, r & b, hip hop. These combined together account for something like 7% of total total listening. Ugh – we’re talking miniscule, here)
For us, the not-so-easily categorizable, contests are pretty much a waste of marketing effort, I think.
Why? Because the number of people who will actively be my fans is always going to be drastically less than those artists working solidy within the bounds of whatever’s in style at the moment.
I suppose if you (the artist) are going head-to-head with Taylor Swift, you’ve got numbers on your side. Country, pop, singer-song writer, indie. Those are big, big genres, a big big possible listening public.
But I have been recently compared to one period in John Ambercrombie’s lengthy and amazing career. I don’t think that even John’s going to win a popularity contest against Taylor any time in the near future (or the shape of the listening public will have to shift drastically).
Nothing meant against either Taylor Swift (I like her debut album a lot) or Mr. Ambercrombie – who is among my guitar heros. Each of these artists is valid within the constraints of their work: one is meant to appeal to a broad audience, and one is a much more personal vision and exploration appealing to a much smaller subset of listeners.
I believe that many of us are working with less constraints on influences and explorations. Those of us taking these chances, by the very nature of the chances, are not going to find mass appeal – at least not unless we get really lucky (like, say, hitting the lotto jackpot, or being invited in because of the respect our work garners. Think Herbie Hancock. His playing and his taste have taken him far beyond the confines of what is normally considered jazz. On the other hand, I’m not Herbie Hancock by a long stretch)
The the short of it is, please don’t bother me with popularity contests. I’m not out to win any!
I’m out to produce music that both interests me to play, and which hopefully, some folks, particular folks, will also enjoy listening to?
Oh and by the way, why would reviewers let a popularity contest choose the work for review? Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around? Aren’t reviewers supposed to be finding works for their readers? And, perhaps, they are to warn readers off of works that may not meet expectations?
As I just read in Mic LaSalle’s column, “a review is a news story about how good or bad a movie (recording, show) is.” Yeah, folks at musicemissions.com. Don’t tell the fans what they think. Tell them what you think. Take a chance – choose for yourself.
Are the reviewers at musicemissions.com courageous enough to do their own work? Or do they just want to confirm what the fans have already told them that they already know all about?
I’ll be in Denver next week for a concert. Come introduce yourself to me when I’m at Swallow Hill on the 5th. I’d love to talk about this, or whatever else you have on your mind.
cheers
/brook
*** (I’ve been distributed to college stations by The Planetary Group, and had significant college radio play – so, … check)